Southern Rye IPA | Susquehanna Brewing Company

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A: Soft orange exit from the bottle sits a beautiful light sun tea color in the spiegelau glass. A foamy, light beige head has a good, strong stance and bready pitted texture. The lacing is thick and meaty on the vessel. Effervesce softly rises in a light, misty fashion.

S: Malt forward, sweet caramel and citrus are first impressions. Sweet grain sugars, wort, and toffee sweetness along with some munich toasty nuttiness. Dried cola and soft barley-citrus notes appear on the finish. Everything was of medium strength, a very malt forward approach with a bit of fresh lemon in between.

T: Malty flavor, peppery spicing from the rye is strong and dominate along with a deep toastiness of grains and bread. Grassy hops, with a flair of peppercorns and dry bourbon from the rye. Big breadiness in the body, toasted munich with some raisiny character from the speciality grains, crystal. Dry citrus hops and a good breath of bourbon like alcohol on post swallow. Lemony hops add wetness and a citrus zing.

M: Full body, deep lush of toasted malt is warming along with some cola and spiciness on the inner cheeks. Softly carbonated with a nice heavy feeling on the tongue, boozy spiciness, peppery hop flavors warming on the hold.

O: Overall a malt forward ipa with a dominace of the rye and spiciness. Bready fullness, just the right amount of hoppiness to give this imperial strength and respect, but lets the malt forward nature take a bit more center stage. Strong drink-ability, a good range and spectrum of flavors and spices makes this stand out from your typical Ipa with a slightly different spin per style. I like the usage of of the lesser known southern cross hop and the use of the new experimental strain. Overall very good.

Bottle from my parents.
This was poured into a becher pint glass.
The appearance was a soft medium yellow to dull-ed amber color with a finger's worth of white foamy head that fell off at a fairly slow pace. Lace was spotty and sliding.
The aroma had some sweet rye coming across somewhat floral and then some apricot flesh-like sweetness playing with a little bit of bready notes.
The flavor was moderately sweet through the prior aromas. Seemed like the malty notes flowed into the aftertaste and pushed out the rye notes.
The mouthfeel was about medium bodied with a fair sessionability about it. Carbonation felt good. ABV felt just a touch under but still, I didn't mind. Finish was semi-malty with a brisk rye sweetness.
Overall, I didn't mind this for me, but since I am a huge fan of rye IPA's I was hoping for more of the full component of the "florally sweet and spiciness" of the rye coming about to kick the malts further back. Wishing there was a date on this bottle, still, this stands until I can get another.

Pour like a beer (duh!) but hazy NOT yellow but not amber. Hazy light amber
Smell; yes like apricot NOT citrusy IMHO. Fruit smell present .
Taste: NOT Boozy thats the thing in my opinion the 8 % is well disguised.
Feel; that's ALWAYS PERSONAL.. get a room LOL!
Overall : the rye is not up front but an after-taste to me.
A definite IPA body and I would drink this ice cold all the way.

Would I have another? Yes. I would be very interested how it is from the TAP. After drinking a bottle.
BTWay... again the 8% is well hidden. It sneaks up on you. So Enjoy.
And that's my review.

Susquehanna Brewing Co. "Southern Rye IPA"
12 fl. oz. brown glass bottle, production coded "090115" and sampled on 3 JAN 2017... can it be that this beer is well over a year old?
$2 @ Weis Market, Conshohocken, PA

Notes via stream of consciousness: It initially poured fairly clear until a lump of yeast came out and muddled it up. There's just a tiny spot of yeast left in the bottom of the bottle. Cloudy orange-amber body beneath a frothy head of off-white. The head retention is OK and the lacing is better than average. The aroma is citrusy and tropical with some apricot and soft pine over a sweetish caramelish malt base... there's a bit of spiciness but I can't tell if it's from the hops or the rye. The flavor is full and rich with golden caramel and soft rye. It's sweetish and quite malty, almost like a double IPA, but balanced by a solid bitterness that brings it home to a dry finish. Hmmm... the flavor and aroma are really quite similar to each other. There's a little more depth to the flavor with a touch of lemon and herbs added in, but otherwise it's very similar with a clear note of apricot followed by malt and pine. I can taste the yeast, as in "yeast", which isn't bad, but isn't helpful - perhaps it really is quite old, and if that's the case it's held up amazingly well. The alcohol never shows other than a little heat which is welcome in the dry, piney and herbal finish. Medium-full in body with a fine-bubbled, seemingly natural standard carbonation. I don't normally like rye and pine together because it can get a little too spicy, although this works (perhaps the pine has died down, or the rye; or maybe the rye wasn't that spicy to begin with). And I appreciate that it's fuller and richer in malt, more like a double IPA. Would it fit the category? Yes, current standards cut off a regular American IPA at 7.5% ABV whereas this is 8.6%, and Imperial IPAs start at 60 IBUs which I'm sure it at least has. Very nice. I'd love to see them do this again. Of course it just occurred to me that if I judge this as just an IPA it'll be off (too malty, too much body, too much alcohol)... ugh... what to do?

T - A balanced mix mangos, oranges, sweet red grapefruit and pithy spice with a little bit of alcohol and finishes with a bitter pine/citrus bite that knocks down any remaining malt sweetness. The bitterness starts to fade out not long after the bitter finish and leaves some bitter and sweet orange peel on the palate.

M - Heavy and full bodied for the style, perhaps my favorite part of this beer, it's not wimpy and watery. A little greasy, gentle carbonation, and no alcohol warming on the way down.

O - If you are looking for a punch in the face with hops, this isn't your beer as it is more balanced and there's no bottle dating so I have no benchmark to go by. Overall, this is an enjoyable beer, would like another bottle please!